The so-called "right to be forgotten" was upheld by Europe's
top court on May 13 when it ordered Google <GOOGL.O> to remove a
link to a 15-year-old newspaper article about a Spanish man's
bankruptcy.
"This week we're starting to take action on removals requests
that we've received," a Google spokesman said on Thursday. "This
is a new process for us. Each request has to be assessed
individually and we're working as quickly as possible to get
through the queue."
Google received over 41,000 requests over four days after it put
up an online form allowing Europeans to request that search
results be removed.
Internet privacy concerns shot up the agenda last year when
former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden
revealed details of mass U.S. surveillance program involving
European citizens and some heads of state.
The EU executive has been critical of several major U.S. web
companies, such as Facebook and Google, over their handling of
swathes of personal data. National governments recently moved
towards extending Europe's strict data protection rules to all
companies, not just European ones.
(Reporting by Julia Fioretti; editing by Tom Pfeiffer)
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